Three kinds of oil made the news this week. Gulf crude found its way around a war. Gaza's hospitals ran out of the oil that keeps their generators alive. And in the occupied West Bank, settlers kept attacking the olive harvest.
This is the pilot of The Quiet Part Out Loud, short videos on what the week's news leaves out. Tell me in the comments if you want more.
Crude
The Strait of Hormuz has been choked since the war on Iran began in late February. Tankers keep getting hit. Iran says its mines struck three more this week.
Gulf oil exports are higher than before the war anyway: more than 24 million barrels a day, according to the Wall Street Journal. The industry piped crude across Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, around the strait. When that wasn't enough, it pumped oil from one tanker into another in open water off Oman. That's how badly the world wanted this oil to move.
Generator oil
Gaza's intensive care units run on generators, and generators run on oil. On 21 October, the health ministry said the oil had run out. It asked for oil and spare parts. Israel decides what enters Gaza, and neither is getting in.
Gaza is supposed to be under a ceasefire. Israel has killed more than 1,500 Palestinians since it began. Nobody is moving oil tanker to tanker for a hospital.
Olive oil
The third kind grows on trees. It's harvest season in the occupied West Bank, and the UN counted at least 160 settler attacks on olive harvesters in the first two weeks of October.
The UN's response was to urge governments to "increase international and diplomatic field presence." Translated: send foreigners to stand next to Palestinian farmers and hope the settlers hold back. Brad Lander, a congressional candidate in New York, went. Israeli forces detained him near Bethlehem on 20 October and released him with a warning. Several dozen people detained with him stayed in custody.
The pardon
Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan billionaire banker, was charged in a scheme to bribe Puerto Rico's governor. He pleaded guilty to a campaign finance charge and wanted a pardon. His family signed Alina Habba, Trump's former lawyer, to a deal worth more than $50 million, the New York Times reported. She started in January. He had his pardon weeks later.
By then Habba was a senior adviser to the attorney general, at the same Justice Department that announced this week it will pay up to $30,000 for tips on government fraud. Habba says the job had nothing to do with the pardon.
Milan
In Italy, where I teach, people have been protesting the cost of living. The government sent 500 soldiers to Milan. Under its new rules, join a group of more than five at a protest carrying a stone, a stick or a firework, and you face up to five years in prison and a €20,000 fine.
Governments found a new route for crude in wartime, $50 million worth of access for a billionaire, and 500 soldiers for Milan's protesters. Gaza's hospitals got a statement that the oil had run out. Every one of those outcomes was a choice.
Footage: thatdayin1992, SMohyeddin, HatsOffff, QudsNen, +972 Magazine and Brad Lander on X. Photos: Wikimedia Commons (US Navy, Syama Prasad Mookerjee Port, Jaber Jehad Badwan, محمد شراونة, Tessa Bury, US Department of Justice, slgckgc).
